[llvm-dev] [cfe-dev] Mailing List Status Update

Tue Jun 15 10:41:23 PDT 2021

On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 9:50 AM Matt P. Dziubinski <matdzb at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/15/2021 18:29, David Blaikie wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 7:40 AM Matt P. Dziubinski via llvm-dev
> > <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
> >
> >     On 6/15/2021 12:58, Aaron Ballman via llvm-dev wrote:
> >      > On Mon, Jun 14, 2021 at 5:41 PM James Y Knight via cfe-dev
> >      > <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
> >      >>
> >      >> On Thu, Jun 3, 2021 at 6:19 PM James Y Knight
> >     <jyknight at google.com <mailto:jyknight at google.com>> wrote:
> >      >>>
> >      >>> I've just tried out discourse for the first time. It is not
> >     clear to me how to use it to replace mailing lists. It has a setting
> >     "mailing list mode", which sounds like the right thing -- sending
> >     all messages via email. Except that option is global -- all messages
> >     in all categories on the llvm discourse instance. Which definitely
> >     isn't what I want at all. I don't want to subscribe to MLIR, for
> >     example.
> >      >>
> >      >>
> >      >> FWIW, it would seem that one secret trick here is to NOT check
> >     "mailing list mode" -- that option is mostly there to confuse you, I
> >     guess.
> >      >>
> >      >>> In general, I'd say I'm pretty uncomfortable with switching
> >     from a mailing list to discourse. Discourse seems entirely
> >     reasonable to use for end-user-facing forums, but I'm rather
> >     unconvinced about its suitability as a dev-list replacement. Other
> >     communities (e.g. python) seem to have a split, still: mailing lists
> >     for dev-lists, and discourse for end-user-facing forums.
> >      >>>
> >      >>> I'd also note that Mailman3 provides a lot more features than
> >     what we're used to with mailman2, including the ability to
> >     interact/post through the website.
> >      >>>
> >      >>> Maybe someone can convince me that I'm just being a curmudgeon,
> >     but at this point, I'd say we ought to be investigating options to
> >     have Someone Else manage the mailman service, and keep using mailing
> >     lists, rather than attempting to switch to discourse.
> >      >>
> >      >>
> >      >> On that last point, I've gone ahead and asked the folks at
> >     osci.io <http://osci.io> ("Open Source Community Infrastructure") if
> >     they'd be willing to host our mailing lists. They are a group at
> >     RedHat whose mission is to support infrastructure for open-source
> >     community projects, and they host mailman3 lists for a number of
> >     other open-source groups, already (https://www.osci.io/tenants/
> >     <https://www.osci.io/tenants/>). So, I believe they have the
> >     necessary experience and expertise.
> >      >>
> >      >> They have said they indeed are willing and have the capacity to
> >     run this for us as a service, if we'd like. We'd still need to be
> >     responsible for things like list moderation, but they'd run the
> >     mailman installation on their infrastructure. In my opinion, we
> >     ought to take this option, rather than trying to push a migration to
> >     discourse.
> >      >>
> >      >> To me, it seems this would be a much clearer upgrade path, and
> >     would solve the hosting/volunteer-admin issue -- including for
> >     commit lists -- giving the current maintainers quicker relief from
> >     the undesired task of running the list service. Additionally, since
> >     it would be a migration to Mailman3, we would get many of the
> >     additional features mentioned as desirable, e.g. searchable archives
> >     and posting from the website.
> >      >
> >      > Thank you for checking into a mailman3 hosting option, I think
> this
> >      > approach would make me feel the most comfortable (far more
> >     comfortable
> >      > than switching to Discord).
> >
> >     I also find Mailman 3 friendlier than Discourse from the UX point of
> >     view.
> >
> >     Currently Discourse doesn't directly support standard search
> >     functionality in web browsers,
> >
> >
> > Could you describe what's missing/not working in more detail? At least I
> > can use my browser (Chrome)'s search functionality to find words in both
> > the pages linked below.
>
>
> Sure! It may be easier to notice in a longer thread: Compare the
> following two views--searching for D104227 using the built-in search in
> a web browser initially finds 0 occurrences in the first one (at the
> same time it works fine in the print preview and finds 1 occurrence in
> the penultimate comment, at least at the moment of writing):
>
> https://llvm.discourse.group/t/rfc-introduce-alloca-scope-op/2940
>
> https://llvm.discourse.group/t/rfc-introduce-alloca-scope-op/2940/print

Ah, yep, that demonstrates the issue but for some reason the previous links
didn't (maybe because the previous linked thread was all on one page for me)

>
>
> The issue is related to the unload-on-scroll behavior of Discourse: When
> you open a page on https://llvm.discourse.group it doesn't load (or
> show) the entire thread on one page by default but instead progressively
> loads (and unloads) partial content as you scroll along.
>

Ah, yeah - which is why it hijacks the search shortcut to do a web form
search rather than the browser builtin. Seems to work OK - I wouldn't count
this as a major usability problem, at least for me.

>
> There's no such restriction in the Mailman web UI since it displays the
> entire thread on one page by default, even for longer threads, e.g.,
>
> https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-dev@python.org/thread/JM6SQ2YNMDAKXYD5O54QWMVR2X7QOXVL/
> Loading the complete thread (displaying all messages) allows the
> built-in search to work without issues.
>

Great to see too - especially to see that it addresses an issue that's
always pained me about our current mailman setup, where threads get split
by week or month - so there's no nice way to link to a whole thread. I'll
be happy to see that addressed in either/any way.

- Dave

>
> Best,
> Matt
>
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